Country Rap Sensation Justin Champagne Gets Added to CMT

Country rapper, Justin Champagne released his heartbreaking video for "Number to Heaven," on August 21st and in less than a month since its release on YouTube, it's racked up over 110,000 views. And if that isn't reason enough to celebrate, CMT.com will be airing the video starting September 18th. Watch "Number to Heaven" here.

The first in a series of singles that Justin will be releasing this fall, "Number to Heaven" - inspired by Justin's father, is a bare-boned ballad about loss and love, accompanied by a video that's every bit as moving as the song itself. One of the most emotional songs in his catalog, "Number to Heaven" shines a spotlight on Justin Champagne's voice, proving that his slower songs pack just as hefty a punch as his revved-up bangers.

Born and raised in South Louisiana, Justin Champagne makes genre-bending music rooted in the sounds, stories, and swampy swagger of his home turf. It's a soundtrack for Louisiana's small towns and muddy backroads - a gumbo of hip-hop, country, hook-heavy pop, and hard rock, glued together by a hometown hero who raps and sings not only about his own experience, but also about the country lifestyles of his neighbors in the Deep South and beyond.

Years before viral hits like "Back Roads" and "Sun Goes Down" racked up millions of streams, Justin grew up in New Iberia, Louisiana. His father passed away when he was six years old, leaving his mother to juggle two different jobs to help provide for the family. Her tireless work ethic inspired Justin, who started recording his first songs as a teenager. Meanwhile, the loss of his father - an amateur musician who played and sang guitar - shaped his own approach to music. Determined to chase down the creative milestones that would have made his Dad proud, Justin began making music that was diverse and driven, collaborating with multi-platinum rapper Kevin Gates one minute and recording his own pop-influenced songs the next.

Everything changed in 2016, when Justin Champagne wrote "Sun Goes Down." Filled with hip-hop beats, countrified guitar riffs, soaring vocal hooks, and rhythmic rapping, "Sun Goes Down" was the first song to embrace the full range of Justin's musical tastes. By combining a variety of different sounds together, he created something new: a boundary-breaking genre that showcased not only the depth of his influences, but also his versatility as a songwriter, storyteller, vocalist, and rapper. Unsurprisingly, the song became a hit, earning more than a million listens on Spotify and laying the foundation for a unique, trendsetting career. "Why do people need to stick to just one genre?" Justin asks. "I want to do it all at once, writing country songs with pop hooks where I can rap. I just put everything into one big pot and start cooking. People call it 'country-rap,' but it's just music, man. I wouldn't want to call it anything else."

Listen to "Number To Heaven" here: